Certain cooktop appliances include gas burners for heating pots, pans, griddles, etc. Various factors affect performance of the gas burners, including entrainment of air for fuel mixing prior to combustion. One mechanism to improve air entrainment is to use a long mixing throat, which also provides an increased residence time for mixing air and fuel. Long mixing throats can facilitate formation of a homogeneous mixture prior to combustion without significant pressure loss. However, gas burners with long mixing throats have certain drawbacks.
Long mixing throats are frequently horizontally oriented within the cooktop appliance due to space constraints. Cooktop appliances are frequently sold configured to burn natural gas and must be converted to burn propane. The conversion from natural gas to propane generally requires an installer to switch the gas orifices within the cooktop appliance to propane gas orifices. The horizontal mixing throat positions its fuel orifice far from its burner head. Thus, the installer is required to disassemble the cooktop to access and switch out the fuel orifice, and switching out the fuel orifices in cooktop appliances with horizontal mixing throats is tedious and time consuming.